You may recall the launch of Conservapedia.com back in March 2007, founded by American religious activists (a styling that we always like; has anything ever been done by a non-activist?) who asserted that Wikipedia was "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American".

Their principal beef was that they found themselves unable to make permanent changes on the site to articles that they disagreed with (or where the evidence disagreed with them). So they cloned it - though not in a Dolly the sheep kind of way, obviously - and under the, um, guidance of Andy Schafly, its founder, set about creating their own little corner of the net where they could be sure that their version of truthiness would reign. And just to make sure, they subtitled it "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia".

Enter, earlier this month, a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS), in which a team led by Richard Lenski studied bacterial evolution of a lab strain of E.coli going over 30,000 generations spanning 20 years.

Many of the bacteria have evolved the ability to better utilize the sugar available in their cultures, but one strain underwent at least three distinct changes (at generation 27,000, 31,000 and 33,000) that enabled them to access citrate present in the medium—something their parents were incapable of. Lenski saved samples of every culture at intervals of 500 generations, and his paper suggested his lab was going back and sequencing the genomes of the intermediaries to try to find out the genetic basis for the evolution of this new trait.

So far, so scientific. However Conservapedia didn't like this idea that bacteria might "evolve". So Schafly (who is said to have an engineering background) wrote to Lenski, saying "Skepticism has been expressed on Conservapedia about your claims, and the significance of your claims, that E. Coli bacteria had an evolutionary beneficial mutation in your study...." Basically, he wants the data. Because it was taxpayer-funded.

ARS again:

From here on out, standard Internet drama ensued. By the time of his next reply, Lenski had apparently read the discussion pages attached to the letters, and discovered that Schlafly hadn't actually bothered to read the paper he was demanding the data for. He has also discovered that some Conservapedia members were simply calling the whole thing a hoax, and accusing him of having engaged in research fraud. As a result, Lenski was apparently very annoyed, and his second letter is far more assertive.

Panda's Thumb (geddit?) has also been covering the fun, in which Lenski is first polite, then realises that Schafly didn't actually read the paper in full, doesn't understand what the data are, and hasn't taken any notice of the people on Conservapedia itself who have some expertise in the subject and think it's a well-researched paper.

ARS notes the aftermath:

Several of those individuals are apparently now ex-Conservapedia members, having had their accounts blocked for insubordination. In fact, anyone who questioned Schlafly's demands seem to have been branded an opponent of public access to scientific data; the statement, "I'll add your name to the list above of people who oppose the public release of data" peppers Schlafly's responses throughout the discussion.

Oh dear. It sounds so unlike the ideals that Schafly wanted - an encyclopedia you can trust, and where the right people get to edit it. Who knew the internet was so full of people who can think - and that scientists might actually turn out smarter than people whose minds aren't flexible enough to accommodate one of the great ideas of history?